Rex Beach

“ Boyd and Big George worked unceasingly in the midst of a maelstrom of confusion, the centre of which was the dock. There, one throbbing April evening, The Bedford Castle berthed, ready to receive her cargo, and the two men made their way toward their hotel, weary, but glowing with the grateful sense of an arduous duty well performed. The following morning would find the wharf swarming with stevedores and echoing to the rattle of trucks, the clank of hoists, and the shrill whistles of the signalmen.
"Looks like they couldn't stop us now," said Balt.
"It does," agreed Emerson. ”

“ The Indian village gave sign of life only in thin, azure wisps of smoke that rose from the dirt roofs; the cannery buildings stood as naked and uninviting as when Boyd had last seen them. The Greek cross crowning the little white church was gilded by the evening sun. Through the glasses Cherry spied a figure in the door of her house which she declared was Constantine, but with commendable caution the big breed forebore to join the fleet of kyaks now rapidly mustering. Taking Clyde with them, she and Boyd were soon on their way to the land, leaving George to begin discharging his cargo. ”

“ There was no reality in earth, air, or sky. Their vision was rested by no spot of color save themselves, apparently swimming through an endless, formless atmosphere of gray.
"Fingerless" Fraser broke trail, but to Boyd Emerson, who drove, he seemed to be a sort of dancing doll, bobbing and swaying grotesquely, as if suspended by invisible wires. At times, it seemed to the driver's whimsical fancy as if each of them trod a measure in the centre of a colorless universe, something after the fashion of goldfish floating in a globe. ”

“ For a moment they stood and stared after the fast-dwindling team, while the breath of the Arctic sea stiffened their garments and froze their boot-soles to the ice.
"Did you see?" Fraser ejaculated. "Good Lord, it's a woman! A blonde woman!"
Emerson stirred himself. "Nonsense! She must be a breed," said he.
"Breeds don't have yellow hair!" declared the other.
Swiftly they bent in the free dogs and lashed the team to a run. They felt the chill of death in their bones, and instead of riding they ran with the sled till their blood beat painfully. ”

“ In such descents they were forced to let go the helpless man, whose body rolled ahead of them like a boneless sack; but these very mishaps helped to keep the spark of life in him, for at every disheartening pause the others rubbed and pounded him, though they knew that their efforts were hopeless, and would have been better spent upon themselves.
Fraser, never a strong man, gave out in time, and it looked as if he might overtax the powers of the other two, but Balt's strength was that of a bull, while Emerson subsisted on his nerve, fairly consuming his soul. ”

“ Remember where we are. You are not looking well, Boyd. I don't know that I ever saw you look so badly. Perhaps it is your clothes."
"I am tired," he confessed, feeling anew the weariness of the past twenty-four hours. He covertly stroked a fold of her dress, murmuring: "You are here, after all. And you love me, Mildred? You haven't changed, have you?"
"Not at all. Have you?"
His deep breath and the light that flamed into his face was her answer. "I want to be alone with you," he cried, huskily. "My arms ache for you. Come away from here; this is torture. I'm like a man dying of thirst." ”

“ When one has lived long in the rough where things come with the husk on, he fancies himself weaned away from the dainty, the beautiful, and the artistic; after years of a skillet-and-sheath-knife existence he grows to feel a scorn for the finer, softer, inconsequent trifles of the past, only to find, of a sudden, that, unknown to him perhaps, his soul has been hungering for them all the while. The feel of cool linen comes like the caress of a forgotten sweetheart, the tinkle of glass and silver are so many chiming fairy bells inviting him back into the foretime days. ”

“ Rumbling curses as he came, he leaped up the pilot-house steps, wrenched open the door, and with one sweep of his hairy paw flung the helmsman from his post, panting,
"Keep her going, Cap', or I'll run them down!"
"We stood by you, old man," Emerson urged; "you stand by us. They can't make you stop. They can't come aboard."
The launch was abreast of them now, and skimming along so close that one might have tossed a biscuit aboard of her. For an instant Captain Peasley hesitated; then Emerson saw the ends of his bristly mustache rise above an expansive grin as he winked portentously. ”

“ It's quite impossible to describe it—this great silver horde. They are entirely defenceless, of course, and almost every living thing preys upon them. The birds congregate in millions, the four-footed beasts come down from the hills, the Apaches of the sea harry them in dense droves, and even man appears from distant coasts to take his toll; but still they press bravely on. The clank of machinery makes the hills rumble, the hiss of steam and the sighs of the soldering-furnaces are like the complaint of some giant overgorging himself. ”

“ The long voyage that had maddened the fishermen was at last at an end, and they were eager to begin their tasks.
A three-mile pull brought the ship's boat to Cherry's landing, where Constantine and Chakawana met them, the latter hysterical with joy, the former showing his delight in a rare display of white teeth and a flow of unintelligible English. Even the sledge-dogs, now fat from idleness, greeted their mistress with a fierce clamor that dismayed Alton Clyde, to whom all was utterly new and strange.
"Glory be!" he exclaimed. "They're nothing but wolves. Won't they bite? ”

“ Instantly a wild cry of rage and defiance rose from the clotted rigging and upper works of The Bedford Castle. Down the fishermen swarmed, ready to over-flow the sides of the ship, but, with a sharp order to George, Boyd ran up the gang-plank and rushed along the rail to a commanding position in the path of his men, where, drawing his revolver, he roared at them to keep back, threatening the first to go ashore. His lungs were bursting from his sprint, and it was with difficulty that his voice rose above the turmoil ”

“ All that afternoon and on through the long, murky hours of the night the battle raged on the lower reaches of the Kalvik. Boat crews clashed; half-clad men cursed each other and fought with naked fists, with oars and clubs; and when these failed, they drove at one another with wicked one-tined fish "pues." All night the hordes of salmon swarmed upward toward the fatal waters of their birth, through sagging nets that were torn and slit; beneath keels that rocked to the impact of struggling, heedless bodies. ”

“ Emerson, with the glow still upon him, felt a deep contentment which he did not trouble to analyze. It has been said that two opposite impulses may exist side by side in a man's mind, like two hostile armies which have camped close together in the night, unrevealed to each other until the morning. To Emerson the dawn had not yet come. He had no thought of disloyalty to Mildred, but, after his fashion, took the feeling of the moment unreflectively. His mood was averse to thought, and, moreover, the darkness forced him to give instant attention to his path. ”

“ Men broke out from these struggling clusters to nurse their injuries or beat a retreat, only to be overrun and swallowed up again in a new commotion.
Emerson saw the big, barefooted fisherman in the red underclothes, armed with a sledge-hammer, go through the ranks of his enemies like a tornado, only to be struck by some missile hurled from a distance. With a shout of rage the fellow turned and flung his own weapon at his assailant, felling him like an ox, then he in turn was blotted out by a surge of rioters. ”

“ Why, you just ought to witness the 'run.' These empty waters become suddenly crowded, and the fish come in a great silver horde, which races up, up, up toward death and obliteration. They come with the violence of a summer storm; like a prodigious gleaming army they swarm and bend forward, eager, undeviating, one-purposed. ”

“ On the north lies the Forgotten Land, to the south are the tempered reaches of the Pacific. In summer the stern sweep of rock and tundra is soaked with weeping rains, and given over to the herding caribou or the great grass-eating bear; but when from the polar regions the white hand of winter stretches forth, the grieving seas lift themselves, the rain turns to bitter, hail-burdened hurricanes that charge and retreat in a death-dealing conflict, sheathing the barrier anew, and confounding the hearts of men on land and sea. ”

“ There are times when it rests with fate to make a strong man stronger or turn him altogether to evil. Such a man will not accept misfortune tamely. He is the reverse of those who are good through weakness; it is his nature to sin strongly.
But the unexpected happened, and Boyd's black mood vanished in amazement at the sight which met his eyes. Moored to the fish-dock was a lighter awash with a cargo that made him stare and doubt his vision. He had seen his scanty crew of gill-netters return empty-handed with the rising sun, exhausted, disheartened, depleted in numbers ”

“ The Chinese maintain such a clatter as to drown the hoarse cries of the stevedores, the complaint of the creaking tackle, and the rumble of the winches. They scurry hither and yon like a distracted army, forever in the way, shouting, clacking, squealing in senseless turmoil. They are timid as to the water, and for them a voyage is at all times beset with many alarms. It is no more possible to restrain them than to calm a frightened herd of wild pigs, nor will they embark at all until their frenzy has run its course and died of its own exhaustion. ”

“ CHAPTER XXIV WHEREIN "THE GRANDE DAME" ARRIVES, LADEN WITH DISAPPOINTMENTS As the sun slanted up between the southward hills, out from the gossamer haze that lay like filmy forest smoke above the ocean came a snow-white yacht. She stole inward past the headlands, as silent as a wraith, leaving a long, black streamer penciled against the sky; so still was the dawn that the breath from her funnel lay like a trail behind her, slowly fading and blending with the colors of the morning. ”

“ Constantine freed the leader, and they went off at a mad run, whisking out from the buildings and swooping down the steep bank to the main-travelled trail. When they had gained the level and the dogs were straightened into their gait, they skimmed over the snow with the flight of a bird.
"That's a wonderful team you have," Boyd observed, as he glanced over the double row of undulating gray backs and waving plume-like tails.
"The best in the country," she smiled back at him. "They are good for a hundred miles a day." ”

“ Mildred had interrupted petulantly. "Oh, this endless chatter of money! It is disgusting. I only wish we were poor. Instead of a blessing, our wealth is an unmitigated curse—a terrible, exhausting burden. I hear of nothing else from morning till night. It gives us no pleasure, nothing but care and worry and—wrinkles. I can do without horses and motors and maids, and all that. I want to live, really to live." She had arisen and gone over to Boyd, laying her hand upon his shoulder. ”

“ It was Wayne Wayland who had shown him his folly. He had talked to the young engineer kindly, if firmly, being too shrewd an old diplomat to fan the flame of a headstrong love with vigorous opposition.
"Mildred is a rich girl," the old financier had told Boyd, "a very rich girl; one of the richest girls in this part of the world; while you, my boy—what have you to offer?"
"Nothing! But you were not always what you are now," Emerson had replied. "Every man has to make a start. When you married, you were as poor as I am." ”

“ The next dawn showed the mountain peaks limned like clean-cut ivory against the steel-blue sky, and as they crept up through the defiles the air was so motionless that the smoke of their pipes hung about their heads, while the creak of their soles upon the dry surface of the snow roused echoes from the walls on either side. At first their progress was rapid, but in time the drifts grew deeper, and they came to bluffs where they were forced to notch footholds, unpack their load and relay it to the top, then free the dogs, and haul the sled up with a rope, hand over hand. ”

“ Emerson found his sweetheart's eyes fixed upon him oddly. She turned to her father and said: "I consider that positively criminal."
"Tut, tut, my dear! It sounds cruel, of course, but it is business, and it is being done every day; isn't it, Boyd?"
Boyd made no answer, but Marsh hastened to add:
"You see, Miss Wayland, business, in the last analysis, is merely a survival of the fittest; only the strong and merciless can hold their own."
"Exactly," confirmed her father. "One can't allow sentiment to affect one. It isn't business. ”

“ It reflected fairy-like islands, overgrown till they bowed to their mirrored likenesses. Now a smiling inlet opened up a perspective of golden sand and whispering shingle; again a frowning bluff slipped past, lost in lonely contemplation of its own inverted image. The day was gorgeous, inspiring. Their course lay through an enchanted region, so suggestive of splendid possibilities that Boyd was constrained to observe:
"You know, if the Pilgrim Fathers had landed here in the first place, New England would never have been discovered," a remark at which Cherry nodded in complete agreement. ”

“ When a man fights for money, just plain, sordid money, he loses all sense of honor, chivalry, and decency, he employs any means that come handy. There is no real code of financial morality, and the battle for dollars is the bitterest of all contests. Of course, being a woman, they couldn't very well attack me personally, but they tried everything except physical violence, and I don't know how long they will refrain from that. These plants are owned separately, but they operate under an agreement, with one man at the head. His name is Marsh—Willis Marsh, and, of course, he's not my friend. ”